Since the first year of commercial planting of biotech crops in 1996, more than 70 countries have planted or imported biotech crops. In 1996, the six founder biotech crop countries, including the USA, China, Argentina, Canada, Australia, and Mexico, planted biotech crops in a total of 1.7 million hectares.
A research team from Spain developed an innovative method for the biofortification of leaves and other green plant tissues with increased healthy substances such as beta-carotene, the main precursor of vitamin A in the human diet. The researchers increased the beta-carotene content in the lettuce leaves without negatively affecting other key processes such as photosynthesis. The study shows that it is possible to multiply the beta-carotene levels in leaves by creating new places to store them outside the photosynthetic complexes. The researchers were able to store high levels of beta-carotene in plastoglobules, the fat storage vesicles inside chloroplasts.
The biofortified lettuce has up to a 30-fold increase in beta-carotene levels compared to untreated leaves. The massive accumulation of beta-carotene also gave the lettuce leaves a characteristic golden color.
Read more at Science Speaks.